Yesterday NASA selected an IBM System p5-575 cluster to meet the agency's future supercomputing requirements. NASA picked the IBM supercomputer to play a critical role in many NASA missions, including new space vehicle design, global climate studies and astrophysics research.

This system has 640 computational cores and a peak performance of approximately 5.6 teraflops. A teraflop equals a trillion floating point operations per second.

5.6 trillion sounds really big. Until you consider that IBM's BlueGene/L system that is currently #1 on the TOP500 supercomputer list is 280.6 trillion (floating point operations per second).

And this really is rocket science.

************************************************Source: http://www.top500.org. All results as of 6/07/07.

The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

Next week I hope to be climbing to the top of the highest mountain range east of the Rockies. When you reach the top of one of these mountains you are standing on bare rock, with a view for miles and miles around. And if you're still not sure you've reached the top, you can always find that metal marker forced into the granite, validating your day of trail mix.

IBM once again has reached the top in the brand new TOP500 list of supercomputer sites. IBM dominates the aggregate performance with 41.6% vs. HP with 24.2%. Sun has .9% - yes, that's less than 1%. IBM dominates the TOP10 (with 6) and the TOP100 (with 45). IBM's BlueGene/L remains the #1 supercomputer in the world for the fourth straight year.

There are so many things to brag about on this one, including being a leader in the 15 Teraflop Club.

China has had a lot of business challenges lately. Between lead in toys, poison in pet food, and just today an article on blue-ear pig disease, it would be nice to have some good news.

So it was great to hear today that China now has a new IBM System p5-575 supercomputer cluster to work on weather models for the Olympics in Beijing. The Beijing Meteorological Bureau announced that it has acquired this IBM supercomputer to aid in weather forecasting and air-quality control.

The 80-node IBM System p5-575 delivers peak performance of 9.8 teraflops, ranking it among the ten fastest supercomputers in China, according to the Top 500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers.

Good thing computers can also help in manufacturing and pandemics.

************************************************The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

I used to love to listen to the Top 40 on the radio in my room. Yes, people really used to listen to radios in their houses. The countdowns were cool and it was so great after all those hours to finally get to #1.

Most entries on the list with 232 (vs. HP with 166 vs. Sun with 3 - and yes, the number is really 3)

Most in the Top 10 with 4

Most in the Top 100 with 37

The TOP500 project was started in 1993 to provide tracking and detecting trends in high-performance computing. Twice a year, a list of the sites operating the 500 most powerful computer systems is assembled and released. The best performance on the LINPACK benchmark is used as performance measure for ranking the computer systems.

We used to talk about the sound barrier. These days, IBM is breaking the Petaflop barrier.

************************************************Source: http://www.top500.org. All results as of 11/13/07.

The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

Twice a year. Twice a year I pay my real estate taxes, change the clocks, and almost faint at the price of college tuition. I have also read that twice a year sunlight illuminates Manhattan's cross streets as the sun sets in exact alignment with the city's street grid

And twice a year the TOP500 publishes a list of the most powerful supercomputers on the planet.

You see, when I'm 100, I may not be able to get up (and down) Mount Washington in hiking boots. But I just may be able to drive to the top, the highest point in the state, and gracefully saunter over in my flip flops to reach the marker.

You see, there's just something about being on top.

Today, IBM again topped the TOP500, the infamous list of the 500 most powerful computer systems in the world. IBM has been #1 nine straight times in a row, a new record. IBM achieved the most aggregate throughput and the most power efficient system. In fact, the top twenty most energy efficient systems are all from IBM.

For the top ten systems in the TOP500, IBM had three, Sun had one, and HP had none.

You see, there's just something about being on top.

************************************************The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

Last week, President Obama chose an Arabic satellite TV network for his first formal television interview as president.

You have to hand it to him. No matter what your politics, that move took chutzpah.

What also took nerve was Ideas International's lastest article on high performance computing. The blog presents valuable insight on energy efficiency, clusters, cloud computing and virtualization. And I am delighted that IDEAS agrees that "the HPC market appears poised for growth in the future." The problem I have is the reference to HP "leadership."

IBM has been #1 in the TOP500, the list of the 500 most powerful computers in the world, nine straight times in a row, a new record. IBM achieved the most aggregate throughput. The top twenty most energy efficient systems were all from IBM. For the top ten systems in the TOP500, IBM had three and HP had none.

And it was just announced yesterday that IBM is making the world's fastest supercomputer in the world (20 petaflops) for the United States Department of Energy. "I.B.M. remains intent on producing the biggest and baddest supercomputers on the planet."

And that's not just hummus.

************************************************Source: www.top500.org; Results current as of 2/4/09.

The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

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The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

Remember in Scrabble, when you used a "double-word" square which doubled your points ? It could be a great moment, where you got an avalanche of points. Or it could be hilarious, when you might as well have played with the dog instead. Doubling zero is zero or something like that.

I was reminded of this feeling as I read Sun's latest press release, a High Performance Computing update. It appears that it is supposed to be very exciting news that Sun has doubled the number of entries in the TOP500, the just released list of the 500 most powerful supercomputers in the world.

If you read carefully, you see that this news bring Sun's number of TOP500 systems to a whopping 11. Even Dell has more.

For HPC leadership, IBM leads in numerous HPC benchmarks that we all care about.

And if IBM, or HP for that matter, came even close to doubling their number of TOP500 entries - now that would be real news.

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The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

The most exciting news today is the publishing of the TOP500 list of the most powerful supercomputers. IBM again leads in the TOP500 with the most installed aggregate throughput, the most systems in the TOP10, TOP50 and TOP100. The fastest machine in Europe, the most energy-efficient system, the most energy-efficient x86 cluster. In fact, IBM had 18 of the 20 most energy-efficient systems.

It's no wonder that Oracle would publish a press release today that has nothing to do with the TOP500. Oracle has just published a press release touting an SAP Business Intelligence "world record" benchmark result.

Here's what you need to know:

Oracle has chosen an older simpler SAP BI benchmark rather than the more sophisticated SAP BI-MXL benchmark that IBM has published outstanding POWER7 results on.

Oracle's new result is on a Fujitsu system.

Oracle compares their brand new result with an IBM result from almost two years ago that had 8 times fewer cores and used older technology.(1)

Oh, and in the TOP500 today, IBM had the most systems with 198. HP had 185. Cray had 21. And Oracle/Sun. They had 12.

The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

SAP, mySAP and other SAP product and service names mentioned herein as well as their respective
logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all
over the world.

On Saturday, I spent two hours raking leaves. It was a perfect afternoon. Sunny, warm, no wind. It almost made you glad to be raking leaves on a Saturday afternoon.

What a sense of accomplishment as you get that leaf pile to rise higher and higher. Sometimes you think there's just no way even one more leaf can be placed on top. And then you heave a smaller pile onto the large pile and somehow it actually stays.

IBM's leaf pile has also been reaching new heights in the just released TOP500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers.

IBM once again had the most installed aggregate throughput with over 12,093 out of 43,654 Teraflops. IBM has had the lead for 23 lists in a row.

IBM had the most systems with 200. HP had 160, Cray had 29, SGI had 22. Oh, and Oracle? Oracle had 11.

IBM had the most energy-efficient system as well as the most energy-efficient x86-only cluster. And IBM clearly dominated the top 25 most energy efficient systems overall.

And for even more top news, IBM today just published another #1 SAP SD 2-tier benchmark result, the highest result ever, on the IBM Power 795 (1). Read more here.

On Saturday afternoon, I sat down and lovingly looked over my impressive 3 foot piles of leaves. What an awesome sight. What an amazing accomplishment and so wonderful that with this job you can actually see the results, firsthand and right away. Then something caught my eye. My neighbor has a gorgeous maple that towers above every other tree on the block. The leaves were flaming before me, the color of a sunset on Fire Island. But then it hit me. They were still very much on the tree. And I realized that we've only just begun.

Sources: http://www.sap.com/benchmark, http://www.top500.org. Results current as of 11/15/10.

SAP, mySAP and other SAP product and service names mentioned herein as well as their respective
logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all
over the world.

The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.